


Hiraeth

by Breath4Soul



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluffyfest, Forgiveness, Getting Together, M/M, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 03, Random & Short, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 02:10:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14534415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breath4Soul/pseuds/Breath4Soul
Summary: Hiraeth: a combination of homesickness, longing, nostalgia, and yearning, for a home that you cannot return to, no longer exists, or maybe never was.John faces the reasons he hasn't come home to 221B post S3 and finds the courage to make the leap.S4 never happened





	Hiraeth

It is all in a single breathless moment. John glances over and his eyes lock onto the familiar form of Sherlock who is unceremoniously launching himself into a belly flop onto the sitting room couch. Between heartbeats that graceful, lithe figure is suspended; both falling and flying. His blue silk robe is billowing behind him. His long arms are cast out slightly above his head. His brunet curls, still heavy from the dampness of his shower, fly back from his temple, lifting into a dark cloud so his face is in sharp profile. 

It is a shock wave; pushing John back in his chair, rattling through his chest. Suddenly, nothing works. Heart, lungs, brain; they are all submerged in a thick sludge of muddled and contradicting emotions. Quicksand has filling up his chest and is pushing in around the vital organs, crushing him more with each futile attempt to struggle. 

The back of John’s eyes burn as they adhere to that face. He knows every nuance, every configuration, every mask and persona worn on those pallid features better than he knows his own. He knows the truth, an unfathomable depth of pain and sadness they both try to politely ignore when it seems to swell to the surface. He can see it now in the strain and sadness right there beneath the porcelain facade of boredom and indifference.

That leucous, elegant body tenses, bracing for impact. Eyes focus and sharpen on the destination. Parted lips press together and jaw clenches. 

One cannot help the body's reflexive responses to the fear of getting hurt. Though it is this very awareness of danger that does the most damage as anyone that has seen a drunk stumble unscathed from a car wreck that would kill any conscious person can surely attest. The body's natural instincts to tense when threatened can do more harm than good when pitted against unyielding forces. 

John feels the tension in his own body now, bracing for impact as if he were in Sherlock’s place, about to make contact with the cushions of the sofa.

He had a dream once where he crashed and, as he flew through the air, he kept telling himself to relax, willing his body to go pliant to minimize the damage when he inevitably hit the ground. 

_Knowing what needs done and willing your body to do it are two different things._

Time lurches forward, a body crashes to the couch, a heart contracts, air drags into lungs. John casts his eyes down at himself. He is still in his coat, rain splashed trousers cold against his legs, shirt clinging in places on his chest and torso that have not quite dried from the exertion of the chase that had finally brought the killer to justice. 

He is abruptly aware of his own scent, but more so of how that sharp tang of adrenaline has become mixed in with the heavy, rich scent of Sherlock during the forced closeness of the case. The small touches that lingered warmly on the skin left the detective’s intoxicatingly comforting aroma wrapped around John like a scarf. Sherlock’s essence has become tangled up with his own and it makes him hurt and nauseous in a way he can't quite understand. Low in his gut there is a hollowness like hunger, but deeper and sharper. 

_Some things kill you no matter how you manage to conquer your own instincts._

The things left unspoken have grown large between them. They loom ahead of John, dark and ominous, rising up to meet him like the hard ground after a long fall. 

This isn't his home anymore. It has not been for nearly a year and a half. 

Sherlock never asks. He never presses. He seems grateful enough that John is still willing to drop everything and come running for cases. They don't talk about the rest.

They had won. It had been messy and more than a bit dangerous but they had taken down the remnants of Moriarty’s criminal network and the new leader, a man named Moran. 

Mary had lead them to the heart of it, hoping they'd take out Moran so that she could step into his shoes. 

Her ruse of a pregnancy had been discovered early on by Billy, of all people, when he was trying to monitor her after drugging her at Christmas. 

John and Sherlock had quietly worked together to suss out her end game. In the end she went down too, trying to finish what she failed to do the first time she shot Sherlock, then promptly turning on John when he interfered with her plans.

Aside from the near death experience, it all had wrapped up surprisingly cleanly. They had put it behind them and fell into a familiar companionship of cases again. However, five months later and John still hasn't come back to live at 221B. 

_They had won, but this doesn’t feel like winning._

It is more than habit that keeps John trudging back to his miserable bedsit after cases conclude at all hours of the night and into the wee hours of the morning. Though exhausted to the point of nearly being dead on his feet, he determinedly tears himself away. 

Maybe at first he had stayed away to wallow in his hurt and confusion. It was a form of punishment; of Sherlock for leaving him to morn for two years - of himself for choosing Mary when Sherlock returned. However, they'd both suffered their sins and paid their debts long ago. John's anger never has had much stamina; it can flare, bright and hot, but it snuffs out quickly. 

John drags his eyes back up to the man across the room, now sprawled across the cushions, one long arm dangling to the floor, head turned towards the back of the couch.

“I’d offer you my bed, but I already know you won't take it, John,” Sherlock mumbles sleepily into the back of the couch. 

Sherlock doesn't like to watch him leave. He probably doesn't think John notices how he always finds a way to be otherwise preoccupied when it comes time for John to go, but John notices. He notices because he has never been one for long goodbyes but he knows the pain of living without them when it comes to Sherlock and so it stings to be denied so much as an acknowledgment of their parting. 

He understands though. 

When Sherlock goes on talking to him when he's not there now he understands it's not because John is so unimportant that Sherlock can't be bothered to notice his coming and going, it's because Sherlock can't bare to be without him.

John lets his breath out slowly, studying his best friend. The feeling swells and aches and demands attention. He knows there is no other place where he belongs, yet he sits outside looking in at the memories of the warmth and quiet contentment they once shared.

It is not about 221B. It is not about convenience or comfort or the ease of slipping into a familiar place. This is all about Sherlock. Because if there is something John can equate this tangle of emotions to it would be a sense of being homesick for a place he has never been before.

Sherlock is his home. A home he has never allowed himself to call his own. Always careful; treading lightly, keeping the things that he knew to be too intimate boxed and stowed in closets, hidden, ready to move along. 

Some weeks after the dust settled, when the anger burnt out to leave only smouldering rubble, John was left with the dark seed at the heart of his opposition to returning to 221B; fear. Some part of John fears that if he gives in and returns to 221B, nothing will change… and that seems fundamentally wrong... something _has_ changed… _he has_ … they have… how could they not?

John is tired of running - tired of being scared.

“I want to come home, Sherlock,” John says abruptly. The body on the couch doesn't move, hardly breathes, just waits, perfectly still with his face turned towards the back of the couch. 

“If you'll have me,” John says slower, quieter, because there is no guarantee Sherlock has not closed off whatever space John once had in his heart and in their shared home. And that is what John is really asking here. He is asking permission to move into that place the man has been holding open for him for so long now. 

The meaning hangs heavy in the air between them, like the entire world has stopped, hinging itself on this moment.

Sherlock turns slowly, his eyes wide with so many jumbled emotions, the most clear being disbelief. He blinks rapidly, regaining some composure and slowly sits up, his eyes never leaving John, as if he might disappear if he so much as blinks.

“It is, of course, forever at your discretion,” Sherlock says carefully. 

“I'm ready,” John says confidently. “I'm accepting your offer.” John says simply. 

Sherlock opens his mouth but nothing comes out, so he nods briskly instead.

John stands up, taking off his coat and putting it on his hook by the door, he slips out of his shoes and leaves them beside Sherlock’s taking a moment to appreciate the sense of peace and rightness that visual brings.

He moves to the couch to stand before Sherlock who is looking up at him with an expression of cautious hope. John extends his hand down to Sherlock. 

“I fell for you a long time ago, Sherlock Holmes,” John says softly, his eyes warm and full of promise as he gazes down into wide, pale blue eyes. “I think it's time we stop trying to fight landing… come to bed, Sherlock.” 

Sherlock's eyes study John's hand then move back to his face. There is a flicker of fear there and so much exhaustion from trying to fight the forces of nature hurtling them towards each other. He blinks and some of that heavy darkness behind his eyes slides away. Defenses crumble. He surrenders to the pull of gravity. He nods and they bloth watch as Sherlock slowly slides his hand into John's.

John smiles as a great weight lifts from his chest and a warmth creeps through his insides. He bows his head a moment, grinning. His eyes burn and water as the gratitude swells inside him to near euphoria. While he knows he has done nothing to deserve such a gift, as he gently tugs Sherlock to his feet and leads him down the hall to his room, he hopes this is the beginning of a lifetime of proving himself worthy of it.


End file.
